


Gloriole

by WonderWafles



Category: Moana (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Demigoddess!Moana, Gen, Human!Maui
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:22:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8764000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderWafles/pseuds/WonderWafles
Summary: The first time he sees her, she is clothed in stars.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Some... scattered thoughts I had, I guess, about this AU. I kind of want to do something more coherent in the future, but we'll see.
> 
> I don't own Moana, and certainly make no claim to the Polynesian legends it was inspired from. I hope this causes no offense, as none was meant.

**Finding**

The first time he sees her, she is clothed in stars.

Or at least, that’s what it looks like. She pulls him out of the water, frowns as he starts to cry. She is not good at comforting, not good at babies in general, so she rocks him a bit awkwardly and resolves to find his parents.

Of course, they are long gone. They didn’t want him, and not even Moana, demigoddess of the sea and stars, could make them take him back.

He was an infant. He couldn’t remember this. But somewhere, wherever he went and however long he walked the earth, it would stay in his mind.

**First Navigator**

They call her the First Navigator, the one to lead her people from the island and explore the rest of the wide world. She led them at the prow of a boat, the Oar ever in her hand, the oar which would take her anywhere she needed to go in the blink of an eye.

That was in the past, before she stole the Heart.

Now she was cursed to wander the ocean, never finding a home wherever she went. A perversion of the very desire that drove her out beyond the horizon and to greatness.

Maui was with her ever since he could remember, but she could remember a lot more. Sometimes, she would sit at the prow of her tiny ship and stare at the sky and heave a great sigh.

**Questions**

Maui has a lot of them.

“Did you really steal the Heart?” he would ask breathlessly, swinging his legs back and forth from where he was sitting on the side of the boat. Moana was perched by the side, casting her net in the water, because humans needed to eat.

“Sure did,” she responded, not taking her eyes off of the water.

“Was it awesome?”

“Oh-ho, it was!” She turns back to him (nothing, Maui discovers, makes Moana quite as happy as talking about herself, and he wanted her to be happy above all else) and laughs, high and snorting. “Well, at first it was. Then I got knocked out of the water by a giant flaming fist. That wasn’t as fun.”

Maui giggles, but then says in a hushed voice, “But you lost the Oar.” She hefts her new oar, made of wood and not of magic, over her shoulder as her expression goes pensive. “That I did,” she replied. “That I did.”

“How did you become a demigoddess?” he asks next. She ruffles his hair. “I’ve already told you this one. Although, it is pretty awesome.”

He looks up at her with his best cute face and she laughs. “Alright, alright. No need to break out the heavy weaponry.” So she tells him about how, when she was a girl, she’d longed to explore the ocean. Her duties as soon-to-be chieftain kept her bound to her island, until one day, she dared to venture beyond the reef. Her ship was wrecked, herself close to death; until the gods found her, and gave her the Oar, and sent her back to lead her people.

That night, as he tries to get to sleep, he wants to ask her why his parents left him behind. But whenever he asks that her face gets rigid and she sighs heavily and tries to distract him, so he’s learned to keep that question to himself.

**Tall**

One day he’s taller than her.

She’s mock horrified, pretending to strain to reach his head and bemoaning how he was probably stronger than her now, too (even though the strength of the ocean hides within her and that strength is infinite) until he starts to feel a bit less awkward in his own body.

He’s nearly a man now, so she sends him to fish for himself while she returns to her seemingly eternal vigil on the prow of the boat, looking out over the water. He doesn’t know what she’s looking at, and he knows her well enough now to know that he didn’t need to ask, just to provide reassurance of his presence with the occasional yell and splash. She doesn’t respond, but she doesn’t need to.

**Ocean**

The ocean was his friend.

It had been since… well, since he could remember. Sometimes, when he placed his hand in the sea to watch it flow by, it would rise to meet him, almost eager to see him again. Moana laughed it off when he first told her about it.

“It likes you,” she told him, one day in his youth. “The ocean was always my friend, but it’s been a bit cold to me after the whole Te Fiti thing, you know. Maybe it likes you better now.” There was some sadness in her voice, a sadness Maui didn’t know how to heal.

Cue Maui spending nights on the side of the boat, staring down into the water in rapture, telling it about his day and doing mini high fives with it. Sometimes he’ll ask it why it doesn’t like Moana, and informs it (as kindly as he can, because he doesn’t want to cause offense) that it should, in fact, like Moana, because Moana is awesome. Moana pretends not to hear and pretends not to grin as wide as the world when she does.

**Stories**

Moana would regale him with stories of her exploits whenever she got the chance. At first it was the ones that were told amongst the mortals with a kind of shock and awe; how she united the islands and brought them closer together so that her people wouldn’t have to travel so long, how she made the sun slow down, how she sung to the ocean and smoothed the way away from their island.

Even Moana got tired of stories of her greatness after a while, and so, the older he got, the more mundane were the stories she told him.

Sometimes, it would be about her childhood. The time she stole a delicious-looking fruit from an Elder’s home and ate it all in one go. She had to work for her for a month to make up for it. Or when she would go sailing around her island with her father, looking out over the ocean and (when they thought of it, because she lived in a time of plenty) catch fish.

Eventually, the older he got, Maui began to tell his own stories, during the nights when there was nothing to do but stare at the stars. Once she started trusting him to man the boat while she slept, he would tell her about the little things he thought she’d enjoy while he was alone. To Maui, they sounded boring, but Moana listened intently and laughed at all the right parts and seemed completely and utterly fascinated.

One day the legendary stories stopped entirely, and they would spend the nights in each-others most uninteresting memories, and Maui thought he rather preferred it that way.

**Arrogance**

OK, so she’s a bit full of herself. Maui’s come to terms with that. It’s not exactly the worst flaw a person could have, especially since he figures after all the awesome things she’s done that she kind of deserves it.

And hey, at least she hasn’t sung a show-tune about how great she is. Although that did sound kind of cool.

**Danger**

There was a lot more that stalked the ocean than just the two of them.

Moana gave that knowledge to him piecemeal, once she’d deemed him old enough to know it; although Maui had already figured some of it, in the way she watched the water like a hawk on cold, lonely nights. “Why are you worried about them?” he asked her. “You’re Moana! Demigoddess of the sea and stars!” He struck an awesome pose at this, like he was aiming his fist at the aforementioned celestial bodies. “You could take them.”

She just smiled sadly at this. “Not without the Oar,” she told him. “I mean, I am pretty awesome, but I’m a bit more… strategic flight than fight.”

Maui just grunted at that and looked like he was about to argue before Moana cut him off. “There’s more danger than you know how to fight,” she said, not unkindly. “Let’s just not worry about it for now, and move on, yeah?”

Maui agrees to this only grudgingly.

**Love**

They are each other’s best friends.

Maui supposes that he, at least, doesn’t have much choice in that matter. Besides her, he’s only ever talked to the locals on an island they’d stopped by for a few days at most, before Moana grew restless and departed for the infinite ocean once more.

That’s not to say that he’s not certain that, if he had had a normal upbringing, Moana wouldn’t be his best friend. She is kind, and intelligent, and… all that. He made sure to let her know.

For her part, Moana let Maui know she cared in her own way. He was a bit more touchy-feely than her; whether that was due to temperament or circumstance he couldn’t say, but she did her best to meet him halfway. She would bring him gifts from the islands they visited. Mostly they were nothing of monetary value, just flowers or interesting rocks or even actual dirt, but Maui didn’t mind. In fact, he preferred it that way (what would he do with money?). He kept as many of them as he could stored on the ship, if only to say proudly that he carried all of the islands with him wherever he went.

“You know,” he says one day, out on the water, “the hold is getting a bit full.”

“Hmm,” Moana says, cradling the newest gift. This time, a palm frond, bright green speckled with the barest tinges of yellow.

“We’re running out of places to store food,” he pointed out, an eminently reasonable point.

“Do you want to do something about it?” she asked him.

Maui considered that point. “Nah,” he said, and flopped on his side. The boat wobbles a bit, as he is still not used to his size (Moana will happily point out), but does not capsize. He doesn’t see just how relieved Moana’s smile is as she says, “Good,” and stores the palm leaf carefully among the other gifts.

**Mortality**

Not something they talked about.

Maui was young yet, and like most young people, did not have much room in his head for thoughts about death. Moana was very old, and thought about it quite a bit. Never for her, only for others. When Maui slept, sometimes she would draw her knees close and sigh and think about being alone again.

**The Heart**

It is night. For once, Moana is sleeping and Maui is not. He’s lying stomach down on the boat, absently skimming his hand through the water.

“Water, shmater,” he murmured. “Hotter, potter, notter…”

He sighed and let his arm fall fully into the water, still. “I’m bored,” he said to the ocean.

There was a murmur in reply from the water.

“Yeah, but I’m too bored to sleep.”

What sounded like a sigh, before it grew quiet and still. Maui watched the gentle waves pass by the boat for a while longer, trying to spy fish, and thought. It had been a good week. They’d never lacked for food to eat, and had even come ashore once to barter with the people who lived there. He’d even gotten to pretend to be a scarecrow and get rid of the birds, and eat his weight in fish, courtesy of a very generous and somewhat surprised family by the ocean.

It still felt… a bit off, this time.

He’d been living with Moana for as long as he could remember. When the wanderlust seized her again and she took to the sea, he followed, because that was the only thing he’d ever known.

It’s not like he wanted to leave Moana. But…

He did wish he knew what it was like to have a home. To have a family. The times they pulled ashore were some of his happiest, and he always felt deep regret at having to leave again.

He’d asked her about this, once.

“Do you ever want to go home?”

Moana frowned, but kept fiddling with the rigging. (He’d picked up wayfaring without issue, but the more technical issues of the boat were mostly Moana’s responsibility.) “Sometimes.”

Maui sat up. It was the first time he’d heard her talk of home. “Really? Why don’t you?”

The demigoddess hesitated even longer at this. “Just… stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

She shot him a look that was part exasperation and part affection. “You’re too curious for your own good, you know.”

Maui preened. “I learned from the best.” Moana snorted and returned to her work.

“There’s nothing stopping me, I guess,” she said. “But, well. I’m old, Maui. It’s been so many years since I last saw my island. Everything is different. I’ve outlived everyone I grew up with. There’s a whole new set of people, new customs. I’m always welcome, I know that, but I don’t… belong.”

They sat in silence for a few more moments. _I know the feeling,_ Maui almost said, but didn’t.

Now he cast a sad look at the sleeping demigoddess, and sighed again. The ocean rumbled beneath him, his hand still skimming it. “I don’t know,” Maui said. “I guess I’m just ready for things to change, you know?”

_I want to have a home,_ he didn’t say. _I want to be able to sail out, yeah, but I want somewhere to sail back to more than anything. I want to have a family with someone who wasn’t forced to take me._

He considered for a second. _Well, AND with her in it, too._

The ocean burbled, sounding to Maui almost… satisfied?

Then, without ceremony, it placed something in his hand from below.

Maui almost jumped off the boat at the feel of it, and came even closer to yelping.

It was a rock, but he thought for a second he’d thought that he’d grabbed a fish by accident before he realized the thing was much too small to be a fish.

He pulled it out of the water, and stared at it rapturously. It was a tiny green stone, made even tinier by being in his (admittedly) giant hands. “What is…” he began, but the question died in his throat when he noticed the ocean rising up behind Moana. With a lurch, it poked her in the back none too gently.

“Ah!” she cried, and sprung to her feet. “What happened? What was that?!” She assumed a fighting position and circled the boat warily.

Maui laughed uproariously, startling Moana for a second before she noticed him. Her expression went from fear to mischievousness in a few seconds flat. “Oh, so it was you!” she laughed. “Well, I’ll have you know, it’s dangerous to wake a goddess.”

“Demigoddess,” he corrected her through snorts.

“Pfeh,” she said, and looked away in mock indignation. And possibly some real indignation.

“And that wasn’t me,” he continued. “That was the ocean.”

Moana frowned. “Really?” she asked, and turned to face the water. She bent down to look more closely before she turned back to Maui. “Why would it-?” She stopped. Comprehension dawned on her face. “Maui,” she said. “What is that in your hand?”

The ocean burbled again.


End file.
